Samaritan makes money in April

MOSES LAKE — While revenues for Samaritan Healthcare are running behind budget projections for the first four months of the year, the hospital and clinics were in the black for the month of April. However, Samaritan has lost money for the year to date through the end of April.  

Darryl Wolfe, interim chief financial officer, said Samaritan ended April with a positive net income of $146,000 for April. 

“Not a huge number, but we’ll take it,” Wolfe said. “It’s positive, and that’s the goal.”                                    

Samaritan posted a net loss of $2.2 million for the first four months of the year. Wolfe said hospital officials anticipated that the move to a new facility would affect hospital utilization, but it’s been lower than expected. 

Inpatient revenue, where people stay in the hospital overnight or longer, is lower than projected, he said. 

“The main driver of inpatient revenue is our patient days. Our patient days are down about 10% (and) revenues are down about 10%. Those are tracking as we would expect,” Wolfe said. 

Medical admissions were lower than projected and have been lower for the first four months of the year. Admission of surgical patients was higher than budget, but obstetrics admissions were below projections.  

Outpatient revenue, where people are treated and released in the same day, also was lower than budget projections, but the gap is getting smaller, Wolfe said. 

“Best results of the year so far on the outpatient revenue – not where we hope to be relative to the budget, but that said, best so far,” he said. “I think this will pick up as we move forward.” 

Revenue from the two Samaritan clinics, one on South Pioneer Way and the other on Patton Boulevard, is above the budget revenue projections. 

Expenses also were below budget projections, which Wolfe said was to be expected given that patient utilization is lower than projected.  

“I think what we want to keep an eye on is our payor mix, especially our Medicare numbers and our Medicaid numbers,” Wolfe said. “That’s part of our population – that's who we serve. But, as I've mentioned before, Medicare and Medicaid do pay us less than cost, so we just want to be keeping an eye on those demographics going forward.” 

The hospital and clinics had to use more temporary staff, he said, which is one of Samaritan’s largest areas of expense. Some of that was due to temporary employees hired to help with the move to a new hospital, but the obstetrics was the department with the most temporary staff, followed by the IT department. 

Chief Executive Officer Alex Town said it’s difficult to hire staff for IT, since medical terminology is very specialized. 

“We can easily find basic, fundamental IT support, but when you start getting your analytical, your network administrators, that's where we really are struggling,” Town said. “It’s very competitive, especially in this area.”